Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Making waves

First it was wind farms, then solar power; now Portugal is looking to the Atlantic ocean north of Porto as a source of renewable energy. As more and more cities look for greener ways to source their energy, Paul Blaney examines the Portuguese model

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and this certainly seems true when it comes to Portugal’s development of renewable energy. The country has limited reserves of oil, coal and gas, and has long been dependent on imports of fossil fuels. To combat this, five years ago Portugal embarked on an ambitious new energy policy that makes the most of renewable sources such as the wind and sun, in which the country is rich.

“Wind and water are our nuclear power,” says Manuel Pinho, Portugal’s minister of the economy. “The relative price of renewables has fallen and with climate change and the rise in oil prices their importance can only increase.” Today, according to Pinho, 19% of the country’s power is generated from renewable sources, putting Portugal third in the EU, behind only Sweden and Austria. And with a number of new projects under development, Portugal could soon top the EU table.

create electricity. The three Pelamis P-750 machines, popularly known as sea snakes – Pelamis platurus is the Latin name for the yellow-bellied sea snake – will be heading out to sea this summer. Each has a capacity of 2.25 megawatts and to begin with will contribute relatively little to Portugal’s electricity grid. But the long-term potential of wave power is clearly enormous.

“Of all the varieties of renewable energy, harnessing the waves may be the only one where Portugal has a real future,” suggests Rui Barros, director of new projects at Enersis, a Portuguese energy company that’s helping to fund the Aguçadoura project. “With our geographical position and extensive coastline, estimates have predicted wave power could account for 30% of the country’s gross domestic product by 2050. And renewable-energy experts suggest wave farms in Portugal could yield three times as much energy as a wind turbine park for the same investment.”

Enersis plans to invest in a series of wave farms with a view to producing electricity for up to half a million homes in and around Porto.

Oceans of electricity

Among a range of initiatives, it’s the development of the world’s first commercial wave farm off Aguçadoura, 35km north of Porto, that has drawn media attention and put wave power firmly back on the agenda.

Located on Portugal’s Costa Verde, Aguçadoura’s beach has long been popular with surfers; now scientists are to investigate a different application of the Atlantic’s power. The Pelamis Wave Energy Converter uses the motion of ocean surface waves 5km offshore to

Harnessing the sun

Wave power may be the future, but the technology is still at the prototype stage. At the heart of Portugal’s current renewable energy programme is the world’s largest solar energy farm now up and running on eastern Portugal’s Alentejo plain. The Alentejo has long been Portugal’s poorest region, best known for its production of cork, but it also gets more sun per year than anywhere else in Europe. Hence the choice of a site near Moura as the location for 2,500 gigantic solar panels that tilt and turn like sunflowers to follow the movement of the sun. Once fully operational, the solar farm will supply electricity to some 30,000 homes.

“Photovoltaic [solar] energy is the renewable source that currently has the most potential,” says Gonçalo de Moura Elias, an engineer at Soluções Racionais de Energia [Smart Energy Solutions], based in Torres Vedras. “A number of promising breakthroughs have been made recently and I strongly believe the cost of the technology will soon come down, which is one factor that has been holding back investment.”

Windmills of the north

In terms of wind power, Portugal is once again leading the field, with developments concentrated in the Minho region to the north of Porto. Here, on a range of hills that runs along the border with Spanish Galicia, is Europe’s largest wind park where more than 100 turbines are busy spinning wind power into electrical current. With enticement from central and local government in the form of funding and planning permission, Portugal has more than trebled its energy output from wind power in three years.

What’s good for the balance of trade and for the environment can also help struggling local economies. When the Portuguese government is looking for industry partners to help develop sources of renewable energy, it also seeks assurances that the projects will benefit local industry. In Viana do Castelo, an hour’s drive north of Porto, a factory with more than 1,000 staff is hard at work producing the hi-tech blades for fibreglass wind turbines. Most of the workers were formerly employed in the region’s textile industry, which has fallen on hard times.

According to former secretary of state for the environment Carlos Pimenta, a further 19 factories will start operating in Viana do Castelo in 2009, producing wind power equipment for both domestic and export markets. Once the factories are completed, exports of state-of-the-art turbines should generate €300m a year. The project will also create thousands of jobs in the region, says Pimenta, who – in an analogy to the Volkswagen car plant at Palmela – describes it as an “Autoeuropa of the wind”. “We’re not just generating our own electricity instead of importing fuel,” he says. “We’re creating jobs, and creating new technology that we can use as well as export.”

The bottom line

Clearly the development of new technology doesn’t come without a price. Companies are more than willing to invest in renewable energy – as long as the price is right.

In recent years, the Portuguese government has offered a variety of financial incentives to attract private sector investment in renewable energy. One common incentive is the feed-in tariff. Under this, the investor is guaranteed a low fixed price for electricity over a set period.

Portugal has made impressive progress in recent years to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels, but it’s Portuguese taxpayers who’ve paid the bill to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros. As with many other new projects, it’s a classic case of no pain, no gain.

FR L’énergie fait des vagues

La nécessité, à ce que l’on dit, est mère de l’invention. Cet adage se vérifie particulièrement à l’heure actuelle au Portugal, dans le cadre d’un vaste programme de développement des énergies vertes. Le pays a une longue histoire de dépendance aux fuels fossiles importés. Afin de contrer cette situation, il s’est embarqué dans une ambitieuse politique énergétique, destinée à tirer parti des sources renouvelables comme le vent et le soleil.

Parmi une large série d’initiatives, c’est le développement de la première ferme commerciale de récupération de l’énergie des vagues, près d’Aguçadoura, à 35km au nord de Porto, qui a focalisé l’attention des médias. Pelamis, le convertisseur d’énergie des vagues, récupère la force de propagation des vagues à la surface de l’océan pour créer de l’électricité. Trois machines à équipements flottants seront lancées en mer cet été, chacune disposant au début d’une capacité de 2,25 mégawatts, ce qui contribuera relativement faiblement à l’approvisionnement électrique du Portugal. Mais à long terme, le potentiel de l’énergie produite par les vagues est énorme.

Au cœur de ce programme actuel des énergies renouvelables se loge la plus grande ferme de production d’énergie solaire au monde, dans la plaine de l’Alentejo, où 2 500 gigantesques panneaux solaires s’inclinent et exercent une rotation en phase avec le mouvement du soleil, de la même façon que les tournesols. Dès qu’elle sera totalement opérationnelle, cette ferme solaire fournira du courant à quelque 30 000 foyers.

En ce qui concerne l’énergie éolienne, le Portugal se profile nouveau en tête, avec des projets concentrés dans la région de Minho au nord de Porto. C’est ici, le long d’une chaîne de montagnes, que l’on rencontre le plus grand parc éolien d’Europe intégrant plus de 100 générateurs. Le Portugal a plus que triplé sa production énergétique issue des éoliennes en seulement trois ans. Et ce qui est bénéfique pour l’environnement peut aussi aider les économies locales. A Viana do Castelo, à une heure de route au nord de Porto, une usine employant plus de 1 000 personnes produit des ailettes pour les moteurs d’éoliennes. La plupart de ces travailleurs étaient précédemment employés dans l’industrie textile de la région, qui a connu les difficultés liées à la crise du secteur.

Ce développement de nouvelles technologies a toutefois un coût. Le gouvernement portugais a offert une gamme d’incitants financiers, en vue d’attirer les investissements privés et ce sont les contribuables qui ont supporté la note. Un cas classique de ‘on n’a rien sans rien’.

NL Portugal blaakt van energie

“Nood zoekt list, nood doet wonderen”, luidt het spreekwoord. En dat is een waarheid als een koe wanneer het over de Portugese ontwikkeling van hernieuwbare energie gaat. Het land was lange tijd afhankelijk van de invoer van fossiele brandstoffen. Om daar komaf mee te maken, waagde het zich aan een ambitieus energiebeleid dat het beste uit hernieuwbare bronnen zoals de wind en de zon haalt.

Van een hele rits initiatieven was het toch de ontwikkeling van ’s werelds eerste commerciële getijdenpark bij Aguçadoura, 35 km ten noorden van Porto, die mediabelangstelling opwekte. De Pelamis-golfcentrale gebruikt de beweging van oceaangolven om elektriciteit op te wekken. Deze zomer worden er drie machines naar de zee gestuurd. Elk exemplaar heeft een vermogen van 2,25 megawatt en zal in eerste instantie in relatief kleine mate bijdragen tot het Portugese elektriciteitsnet. Maar het potentieel van golfenergie op lange termijn is immens.

Centraal in het huidige hernieuwbareenergieprogramma van Portugal staat het grootste zonne-energiepark ter wereld. Op de Alentejo-vlakte draaien en knikken 2.500 reusachtige zonnepanelen net als zonnebloemen om de beweging van de zon te volgen. Eenmaal volledig operationeel zal het zonnepark zo’n
30.000 gezinnen van elektriciteit voorzien.

Ook wat windenergie betreft, spant Portugal de kroon met bouwprojecten in de streek Minho ten noorden van Porto. Hier, op een rij heuvels, ligt Europa’s grootste windpark, met meer dan 100 turbines. Portugal heeft zijn energieopbrengst uit windenergie op slechts drie jaar tijd meer dan verdrievoudigd.

Wat goed is voor het milieu kan ook plaatselijke economie vooruithelpen. In Viana do Castelo, op een uur rijden ten noorden van Porto, produceert een fabriek met meer dan 1.000 werknemers wieken voor windturbines. De meeste arbeiders komen uit de textielindustrie uit de streek, die het hard te verduren krijgt.

Maar de ontwikkeling van nieuwe technologie heeft zijn prijs. De Portugese regering bood talrijke financiële incentives om privéinvesteringen aan te trekken, en het zijn de Portugese belastingbetalers die de rekening kregen gepresenteerd. Een klassiek voorbeeld van “geen lusten zonder lasten” dus.

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